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Monday, April 2, 2018

Trump and the Fading Ghost of an Illusion - Amir Taheri

by Amir Taheri

Tehran seems determined
to continue its formal commitment to the "deal" as part of a strategy to
drive a wedge between the Europeans and a Trump administration already
unpopular in the old continent.

The central assumption of
Iranian strategists is that the US cannot sustain a long war. It is,
therefore, necessary to pin down its forces and raise the kill-die ratio
to levels unacceptable by the American public.

Iran did not seize the US diplomats as hostages with nuclear
weapons; nor did it massacre 241 US Marines in Beirut with an atomic
bomb. The mischief that Iran is making in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and
Bahrain is not backed by nuclear power either.

Does the appointment of John Bolton as National Security Adviser
indicate President Trump's determination to formally renounce the
so-called "nuclear deal" concocted by his predecessor Barack Obama?

The common answer of the commentariat is a resounding yes. Long
before Trump promised to tear-up the deal, Bolton was on record
denouncing it as an ugly example of appeasement.

Thus, next May, when the "deal" comes up for its periodical renewal,
President Trump's idea of "tearing up a bad deal" is likely to have
broader support in his administration. And that seems to be exactly what
Tehran is expecting.

In fact, just days after Bolton's appointment, the spokesman for
Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, Behruz Kamalvand, broke a year of silence
to boast about ambitious new plans for speeding up and expanding the
Islamic Republic's nuclear project.

The buzz in Tehran is that the ruling establishment expects Trump to
refuse to sign another waiver linked to the "deal" and, perhaps order a
tightening of the existing sanctions. However, Tehran seems determined
to continue its formal commitment to the "deal" as part of a strategy to
drive a wedge between the Europeans and a Trump administration already
unpopular in the old continent.

Tehran's calculation is that the mid-term elections in the US may
deprive Trump of crucial Congressional support and pave the way for his
defeat in the following presidential election. Thus the wisest course is
to keep everyone focused on the nuclear issue that the Europeans, and
part of the political establishment in the US, believe they have solved
thanks to the "deal," while the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) continues its 20-year long equivocation on the issue.

Only Iran really knows its own intentions on that score.

Iran is right in saying that it is not producing nuclear weapons.
What Iran is doing is to set up all the technical, industrial and
material means needed to produce such weapons, if and when it decides to
do so.

While not producing nuclear weapons now, Iran has a program designed
to make such weapons within months. It is like a chef who brings in all
that is needed for making a soup but does not actually start the cooking
until he knows when the guests will be coming.

While
Iran sets up all the technical, industrial and material means needed to
produce nuclear weapons, it seems determined to continue its formal
commitment to the "nuclear deal" as part of a strategy to drive a wedge
between the Europeans and the Trump administration. Pictured: Iranian
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and European Union foreign affairs chief
Federica Mogherini smile during a 2015 photo-op. (Image source: European
External Action Servic/Flickr)

In the past three decades Iran has trained and deployed the
scientists and technicians needed, built the research centers required,
and set up structures for a complete nuclear cycle, from raw materials
to the finished product.

Part of the Iranian national defense doctrine is based on the
capacity to produce and deploy nuclear weapons within a brief time span.

Before the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran regarded its northern
neighbor, the nuclear "super-power" Soviet Union, as the sole serious
threat to its national security. The assumption was that in case of a
Soviet invasion, Iran should be in a position to use tactical nuclear
weapons while waiting for the great American ally to ride to the rescue.

After the mullahs seized power, Iran's national defense doctrine was
based on the assumption that it will, one day, fight a war with the
United States plus its Arab allies and/or Israel.

The central assumption of Iranian strategists is that the US cannot
sustain a long war. It is, therefore, necessary to pin down its forces
and raise the kill-die ratio to levels unacceptable by the American
public.

In the meantime, Iran would put its nuclear-weapons program in high
gear, and brandish the threat of nuclear war as a means of forcing the
US to accept a ceasefire and withdraw from whatever chunk of Iranian
territory they may have seized.

Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani publicly evoked the possibility
of using nuclear weapons against Washington's regional allies,
especially Israel.

"In a nuclear duel in the region, Israel may kill 100 million
Muslims," Rafsanjani said in a speech in Tehran in October 2000.
"Muslims can sustain such casualties, knowing that, in exchange, there
would be no Israel on the map." Iran's top military commanders also
speak about a military clash with the United States as the only serious
threat to the Khomeinist regime in Tehran.

They believe they have three trump cards to play.

The first is that Iran has a demographic reserve of some 20 million
people of "fighting age" and is thus capable of sustaining levels of
casualties unthinkable for Americans. The second is that Iran is already
the missile superpower of the Middle East and could target all of
Washington's allies in the region.

Iran's third trump card is its nuclear program. Without it, the other
two cards will not have the desired effect, especially if the US
unleashes its new generation of low-grade nuclear weapons designed for
battlefield use.

The real issue, as far as US and its allies are concerned, is that
the regime in Iran has been, is and most likely will remain, a threat
with or without nuclear weapons.

Iran did not seize the US diplomats as hostages with nuclear weapons;
nor did it massacre 241 US Marines in Beirut with an atomic bomb. The
mischief that Iran is making in Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen
and Bahrain is not backed by nuclear power either.

So the real question is: How to deal with a maverick power that has
built its strategy on fomenting discord and instability not only in the
Middle East but anywhere else it gets a chance?

Washington hawks, among them Bolton perhaps, believe that the only
realistic policy towards Iran is one of regime change before the
Khomeinists build their nuclear arsenal. They believe that could be
achieved with a mixture of military and diplomatic pressure, combined
with moral and material support for a pro-democracy movement in Iran.

The Europeans, however, fear that any attempt even at soft
regime-change may push the Khomeinists on the offensive in Afghanistan,
the Persian Gulf, Iraq, the Caucasus, Lebanon, and the Palestinian
territories.

Could a realistic policy be developed through a sober assessment of
both positions? If yes, that would requires far more sophistication than
the "to waiver or not to waiver" debate over what is; in fact; the
fading ghost of an accord wrought from dangerous illusions.

This article first appeared in Asharq Al Awsat

Amir Taheri, formerly editor of Iran's premier newspaper, Kayhan, before the Iranian revolution of 1979, is a prominent author based on Europe. He is the Chairman of Gatestone Europe.Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12112/trump-iran-deal-bolton Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.